This is the part no one likes to talk about: the wasted energy, the inefficient buildings, the millions spent keeping systems running that should have been optimized years ago.

The numbers are too big to grasp, and the solutions are too incremental. And yet, some people insist that change is possible and that buildings don’t have to be relics of outdated infrastructure.

One of those people is Brad Pilgrim, co-founder and CEO of Parity. His company offers a way to optimize HVAC systems, not just as another piece of software but as a guarantee—savings promised, inefficiencies erased.

In this conversation, we talk about skepticism, the slow-moving real estate industry, and why the smartest energy is the energy you don’t use.

🎧 Listen or watch the episode

👤 Interview with Brad Pilgrim

DJ: For starters, can you introduce yourself to our audience and tell us about your role at Parity?
BP: My name is Brad Pilgrim. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Parity, a company that provides HVAC optimization as a service. We use AI to operate HVAC controls and automate energy efficiency, saving money and reducing buildings' carbon emissions. My job is to ensure that the right team is in place, our clients get the results they expect, and the company continues to grow and develop new products and services.

DJ: What specific problems do you help solve for building managers and owners?
BP: Our primary goal is to reduce energy consumption and reduce operating costs while lowering the building’s carbon emissions. In the process, we also operate HVAC equipment autonomously and more efficiently, extend the useful life of assets, increase net operating income, and reduce the need for on-site technical staff.

DJ: You mentioned HVAC. Have you developed the technology yourself?
BP: Yes, we’ve developed proprietary technology that combines machine learning and control algorithms to predict energy usage and optimize for efficiency. We collect data at the process level, measure the difference between baseline operations and our optimized system, and then quantify that in kilowatt hours saved, gas therms saved, and total cost reduction.

DJ: Can you share a success story where your clients saved money and reduced emissions with your technology?
BP: Every client is a success story because of our performance guarantee. We can walk through a building in about an hour and a half, identify all key equipment, analyze energy data, and determine how much energy is being wasted. Then, our Optimizer service reduces the building’s energy use in real time. Our customers achieve the energy savings they sign up for because we control demand dynamically to match real-time needs and are backed by a guarantee.

DJ: How did you discover the need for this kind of technology in the market?
BP: My previous experience was in solar, where I helped startups scale and get acquired. When I bought my first condo, I was surprised to see how much of the operating budget was dedicated to energy costs. I knew enough about technologies like smart thermostats and other energy-saving HVAC technologies, but I wondered why multifamily buildings weren’t adopting them. It came down to three main barriers: disbelief that the technology worked, high upfront costs, and a lack of technical staff to operate it. We built Parity to address all three.

DJ: How does Parity differentiate itself from other smart buildings or energy optimization solutions?
BP: We take a whole-building approach rather than targeting just one system, such as boilers or cooling towers. By controlling all major equipment—chillers, rooftop units, boilers, and pumps—we create a more comprehensive energy-saving solution. Our model also sets us apart: We don’t just provide reports with recommendations; we guarantee a lower energy bill, high ROI, and reduced carbon emissions.

DJ: How do stakeholders react to this level of change in building management?
BP: Like any new technology, there’s an adoption curve. Some people embrace it immediately, while others are skeptical. We spend a lot of time educating our customers, walking them through the process, and making the transition as seamless as possible. We work closely with building staff to integrate our technology without disrupting their daily routines and support them long-term to improve the way they interact with systems in the building.

DJ: When you were building Parity, what vision did you have for the brand’s identity?
BP: Initially, the goal was to offer a no-cost, guaranteed solution for managing energy in buildings. Over time, we realized our bigger mission is to be the go-to company for grid interactivity—helping buildings become dynamic participants in the energy grid through smart demand response- and efficiency solutions.

DJ: What major trends are you seeing in the smart building and decarbonization space?
BP: There’s a mix of technologies emerging—battery storage, demand management, rooftop solar—but energy efficiency is the most straightforward way to reduce emissions. A lot of buildings still operate inefficiently, like running a coffee maker 24/7 just so it’s ready when needed. Our AI-driven system learns usage patterns and adjusts energy consumption accordingly.

DJ: How are regional regulations influencing building energy management?
BP: Regulations are shifting from incentives to penalties. Utilities have long offered rebates for efficiency upgrades, but now, governments are implementing fines for excessive energy use. It’s like speeding—everyone knew it was risky, but until there were speeding tickets, the behavior didn’t change. Now, businesses have both incentives and consequences driving them toward sustainability.

DJ: What role do AI and data analytics play in optimizing building energy use?
BP: AI takes the massive amounts of data we’ve gathered over the years and puts it to work in real-time. We can analyze patterns, predict outcomes, and optimize operations far more efficiently than any human. AI is accelerating advancements in energy management, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of that transformation.

DJ: What are the biggest barriers to the widespread adoption of smart building tech?
BP: One challenge is that the real estate industry has been slow to adopt new technologies. Building systems are still constructed much like they were 50 years ago. Another issue is market fragmentation—there are a variety of solutions out there that make decision-making overwhelming for owners. Unifying messaging and proving ROI will be key to driving broader adoption.

DJ: With so much competition, how do you position Parity above the noise?
BP: We educate our clients and stand behind our results with a performance guarantee. Unlike other solutions that provide recommendations, we actively manage and remotely control building operations to ensure savings. We also offer a much faster return on investment—typically two to three years, compared to five to ten years or more for traditional energy efficiency technologies.

DJ: What excites you most about the future of Parity and smart building technology?
BP: The growing focus on grid interactivity. Buildings are seeing the value in dynamically responding to grid demands, and utilities are creating programs to support that. It’s also exciting to challenge the misconception that being green costs more. Our work proves that sustainability and cost savings can go hand in hand.

DJ: What advice would you give to less experienced founders in climate tech?
BP: There are no shortcuts. Focus on quality, consistency, and listening to your customers. Make sure your product solves a real problem. If you’re raising capital, choose investors who align with your long-term vision. The journey is long, so make sure you’re building something meaningful.

📝 Full episode transcript

Dunya Jovanovic (00:00.969)
Hello, Brad, and welcome to the Green New Perspective Podcast.

Brad (00:05.166)
Hey, thanks for having me on.

Dunya Jovanovic (00:07.327)
So for starters, can you introduce yourself for our audience and tell us a bit about your role at Parity?

Brad (00:16.002)
Yeah, so my name is Brad. I'm the co-founder and CEO of a company called Parity. We do HVAC optimization as a service. So we really deal with connecting buildings with smart controls and then automating the way that buildings become more energy efficient, save money and reduce their carbon footprint. My job is make sure that the right team is there. Our clients are

getting everything they promised and the company's growing.

Dunya Jovanovic (00:48.743)
And what specific problems do you help solve for building managers and owners?

Brad (00:55.682)
Yeah, that's good question and it's a wide answer. But the primary thing that we're solving for building owners is a simple end-to-end solution to reduce the amount of money that they're spending on utilities and reduce their carbon footprint. A byproduct of that is we operate the HVAC equipment in a building more efficiently. We can extend the useful asset life of that.

increase net operating income for the building, also augment the need for technical staff to be in the building to achieve all these things.

Dunya Jovanovic (01:32.967)
you mentioned HWAC, have you developed the tech or?

Brad (01:38.552)
So yes, we have developed the operating technology that we use. So that is our proprietary technology. We use a mix of machine learning algorithms and control algorithms to be able to essentially predict how much energy a machine is going to be using. And based on the demand and the building, we can then control based on the outputs of that AI.

how much energy it should be using. And so we collect the data at a process level and we measure the difference on how the building was running versus how the building is running with parity. And then we quantify that data into kilowatt hours saved, therms of gas saved, and then ultimately money saved.

Dunya Jovanovic (02:24.423)
And can you give us like a success story where your client saved money and emissions with your tech?

Brad (02:32.622)
Yeah, yeah. So we parity is unique in a sense that we actually offer a performance guarantee. So every one of our clients is guaranteed to save the outcome that they sign up for. How that works is again, we're using a proprietary technology that we've developed here at parity to be able to go into a building and very quickly within about an hour and a half walking through the building.

we can identify all the nameplate pieces of equipment and we can look at the energy data and we can essentially determine how much energy waste each piece of equipment has. Therefore, if we're controlling it in the end, so we're essentially the drivers in the car, we can make sure that, as far as the car analogy goes, that you're going to stay on the road, you're going to get the time that we promise you.

From an energy perspective, we essentially can understand how much energy is being wasted so we can control to that demand. So we can look at the demand in the building, control the supply of the piece of equipment to deliver the right amount of utility at the right time every minute, every day, every hour in order to achieve that energy savings. So every one of our customers will ultimately achieve the energy savings that they signed up for.

Dunya Jovanovic (03:43.103)
you

Brad (04:00.27)
So I like to say every one of our customers is a success story because of our unique model.

Dunya Jovanovic (04:04.575)
How did you discover the need for this kind of tech on the market?

Brad (04:13.004)
Yeah, that's another good question. So my background was in solar. So I worked for a couple different solar startups, helped them scale lead sales, helped them both get acquired and really had a deep understanding of the need for alternative energy, energy conservation and climate resilience.

When I was exiting the last company, I bought a condo and I moved into the condo and first condo I ever bought and about three or four months into it, I got a letter slipped under my door and it said, our fees are going up. so fees, it was first condo I bought. I didn't really understand how buildings worked. And I started to understand that large portions of the budget after diving into the budget a bit further,

the most significant operating line in the budget was energy. And I knew energy, I knew solar, I knew that there was ways to attack it. In my previous experience, I got exposed a little bit to things like smart thermostats, variable frequency drives. So I understood that there was technologies out there that were able to solve this problem. My biggest question was, why weren't buildings like mine adopting it? So why weren't multifamily buildings and condos adopting this type of technology?

And really what we found out was it was really all about product market fit. was, there was lots of companies that were producing the hardware that was able to achieve this. And it was widely adopted in commercial, much so institutions, manufacturing facilities, automation has been adopted for decades, but in the multifamily sector, it wasn't being adopted. And we sort of asked the question of why, and some of the biggest barriers were

We don't believe it works. We haven't ever seen it proved out and it's too far expensive for us to get into. So there was a monetary challenge, so a capital outlay challenge. Not a lot of people wanted to spend the money. They didn't believe in the results that were going to happen. So we really built parity around those two items and also the fact that even if you had all this equipment,

Dunya Jovanovic (06:16.393)
Thank you.

Brad (06:34.892)
you still needed somebody that knew how to operate it. And so you needed a technical resource that could program the building automation system, that could continuously commission it, that could solve problems in the building physically when pieces of equipment broke or went offline. So we really turned parity into a energy efficiency as a service, solving the capital outlay problem, solving the technical operator problem, and then through our and V technology, we solve the proof problem. So

Dunya Jovanovic (06:55.251)
and

Brad (07:04.074)
every month, every quarter, every year, we produce a report that shows our customers exactly where the money was saved, how much was saved, how much they performed or overperformed, and they can reconcile that back to their bill. So it really took the guesswork out of energy management.

Dunya Jovanovic (07:21.339)
And you mentioned that you're unique. So in which way do you differentiate yourself from other smart building or energy optimization solutions?

Brad (07:30.594)
Yeah, so we take a whole building approach. So we don't just go after one part of the building. We're not going after, you know, the energy data and benchmarking. We're not just going after boilers. We're not just going after cooling towers or rooftop units. We essentially look at the entire building and the opportunity. So anything from a chiller to a rooftop unit, to a boiler, to a cooling tower, makeup air units, booster pumps, house pumps.

Dunya Jovanovic (07:46.207)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad (08:01.132)
And so we take this holistic approach because there is a larger opportunity there. And I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit later. But when you're controlling that much power and that much demand in a building, so when a building's equipment is all drawing power from the grid, right? Either the gas grid or the electric grid. When you have control of all of those pieces and you can control them and make them work in harmony,

there's much bigger opportunities at the grid level. Like in a demand response event, when buildings are asked by the utility company to lower the demand that they have on the grid during a certain time, we can then automatically curtail all of those pieces of equipment where if we're just going after one piece of equipment or one area of the building, that becomes a much smaller opportunity. So that's one aspect of what makes us very unique. Another aspect would be

we take this end-to-end approach. we essentially, we don't produce reports for buildings to take action. We don't make recommendations after monitoring. We don't go through and produce an energy report and then say, here you go. You have to go do all these things. We just are commissioned and contracted to produce an outcome. And that outcome is a lower energy bill, a high return on investment, and a lower carbon footprint.

Dunya Jovanovic (09:23.067)
And how do stakeholders react to all this newness and, you know, changing the rules a bit?

Brad (09:30.976)
That's really good question as well. I think like any new technology, there's always that adoption curve, right? I'm not the type of person that camps outside an Apple store to get the first phone. Those are the type of people you'd call like innovators. I don't even know that I'd be an early adopter. I like to see things used, proven, and then.

you know, adopt them myself. So I'm probably in that class of early innovator. So I think when we see buildings and building operators take on our technology, like any technology, there's a learning curve and there's some skepticism. And we work really hard to make sure that people understand exactly what we're doing, understand our role in the building, what we are doing, what we're not doing. But ultimately,

We work hard to make them comfortable with the technology and let them know how it's going to benefit them and work with them to integrate that technology into their day-to-day activities because there's nothing worse than, I don't know if you've ever gotten a rental car, but you get into a new rental car and you're trying to connect your phone to Bluetooth and you're trying to figure out where are the lights and how do the wipers work? That's probably the most frustrating thing when I get a new rental car. It's like...

I don't know how any of this works and I all of a sudden have to drive. I'm used to my car. I'm used to the way that I drive it and how everything is set up. So we sort of supervise that adoption and we're there to teach like, okay, here's how you do this. Here's how you do this. This is what we do. And we make sure that that is very seamless through a very, very integrated onboarding process with building staff.

Dunya Jovanovic (11:17.405)
And when you were starting the brand, the company, what kind of vision did you have for brand's identity? What did you want to create in this space that basically screams we're unique, we're offering something different?

Brad (11:32.29)
Yeah, that's changed over time. I think like anything, you know, your vision develops and I think what you said to do originally, which we are doing largely, we really wanted to bring a sort of no cost guaranteed solution to buildings to manage their energy. Energy savings is a massive opportunity. Managing HVAC in a building is the largest opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and buildings produce 40 %

Dunya Jovanovic (11:35.624)
Hahaha!

Brad (12:01.262)
of CO2 emissions globally. So it looked like a big problem. And I think I was focused more on how do I make a big impact in my job and career? What do I do to get up every day and work? I really needed some type of motivation in order to really dedicate a lot of time and effort because I knew I was a driven, a purpose driven individual. I really wanted something to grab onto and I really wanted to make a big impact.

You know, I love the outdoors. I love our climate. I, you know, I love traveling and the thought of it being impacted by something that seemed controllable, you know, was, was, was kind of sad. And I said, okay, well I'm, you know, I found my passion for that in solar and I wanted to keep doing it. So I think the vision overall was to make a big dent, right? Make an impact with the work that I was doing.

I think how that turned into parody was we want to essentially be the go-to company for grid interactivity. And that's some of what I was talking about earlier is the grid is built in a way where, you know, many, many years ago when Edison and, you know, Tesla were figuring out what kind of grid we should have, DCAC, we built that grid based on what we knew at the time. And today that grid is not the same

as it was 100 years ago. And the needs that we have on that grid aren't the same and the way that we interact with it are not the same. So I think in the future, buildings and all type of single family homes, buildings, shopping malls, everything, they'll need to be able to interact with the grid from a production perspective, from a storage perspective, and from a demand flexibility perspective. And so essentially the grid needs to become

totally interactive. We need to be able to share energy with our neighbors. We need to be able to store energy during low times or times of cheaper energy. And then we need to be able to produce it back onto the grid during times of demand. We need to be able to have the flexibility to reduce our load on the grid in an efficient way. We can't have thousands of humans running around a grid system turning things off. That needs to be automated. We need to be using technologies like AI.

Brad (14:28.334)
But ultimately, the grid needs to be totally connected and interact with everything else on the grid. And we know that we're just at the beginning of that, but we feel we have a great product to be able to start the foundation and help buildings adopt those technologies that they will need in the future.

Dunya Jovanovic (14:50.631)
And what major trends are you seeing in this sector? Smarter buildings, decarbonisation, energy optimisation.

Brad (14:57.748)
it's a mixed bag right now. mean, you you're seeing anything from battery storage to, you know, demand management to building integrated photovoltaic cells, rooftop solar. I mean, there's so many technologies out there that are working towards the decarbonization effort. But, you know, some of the top, I'd say, technologies, one,

Dunya Jovanovic (15:00.423)
huh.

Dunya Jovanovic (15:22.611)
Yeah.

Brad (15:27.04)
Is energy efficiency. There's no clearer way. To reduce. And have an impact on your own building. By understanding how much you're using right? I always use the analogy on any interviews or talks that I have of imagine imagine running a coffee maker 24 7365 so that the once or twice a day you put your cup under and your coffee is hot and ready. That's extremely inefficient, right? You probably waste a lot of coffee.

That's essentially how a building, when it's built without controls, operates. It just produces hot water all day long so that when you need to go take a shower, it's there, it's hot and ready. But if you understand, back to the coffee analogy, if you understand, okay, well at, you know, 7 a.m., I want a coffee, and again at 1 p.m., I want a coffee, and you're able to look at those energy patterns over time, you can then predict when to turn the coffee maker on. So that's very similar to how we work in a building is,

We understand the energy patterns and the consumption patterns and our algorithms in AI are able to adapt themselves and run the building more efficiently based on understanding those energy patterns.

Dunya Jovanovic (16:39.943)
and how are regional regulation influencing building management.

Brad (16:45.966)
Regional regulation, think what you're speaking to are things like benchmarking requirements, state and local requirements and penalties. You know, for years there has been incentive from the utility companies to adopt hardware and adopt hardware to be more energy efficient. And those incentives are still here today and I think they'll continue to be around for some time.

Dunya Jovanovic (16:53.107)
Mm-hmm.

Dunya Jovanovic (17:05.362)
huh.

Brad (17:15.798)
And then that combined with the ever increasing cost of energy. So both electricity and gas. think those are two important things to understand when it comes to state and local policies and regulation, because for a very long time, there's been a big carrot, right? There's been a big benefit of just doing this stuff, right? There's been money sent from utilities to adopt hardware to lower energy consumption. There's been the ever rising cost of energy, which is just like, you know, if you were, you know,

seeing a stock go up continuously, you'd probably want to buy as much as possible at a lower price. Well, that's really what being energy efficient is doing for buildings is you're consistently securing a lower cost of operating by managing your energy. But how state and local policies and regulation play into that are it's not just about the carrot anymore. Now there is an equivalent amount of stick. And I think that's important because

At some point, it's like speeding in a car before there was speeding tickets. like, we know speeding is dangerous. We know speeding can hurt you. And we know that it's generally not a good thing to do. Then when the speeding ticket came out, I'm sure everybody stopped speeding as much because there was now a penalty in place to do it. So I think the state policies and the penalties are there to change people's behavior, to let them know there is repercussions for this.

And for a long time, we've been telling you, there's lots of ways to do this. Please adopt it. You know, there's been an incentive to do it. But I think now there's an equivalent amount of stick and carrot to make sure that, know, globally and locally, we're meeting some of our greenhouse gas emission requirements.

Dunya Jovanovic (19:03.613)
And what role does AI and data analytics play in optimizing building energy use?

Brad (19:10.862)
Oh, that's I think that's yet to be determined. But, you know, some I think there's some really interesting technologies out there, including ours today, that essentially, you know, what we're doing with AI and I think what a lot of companies are doing with AI is they're taking all this data that we've been able to collect over the last 25 years and they're putting it to work in a very efficient and fast manner.

they're able to do computations at a much faster pace. They're able to predict things, you know, at a level of accuracy that has never been seen before. So I think any part of the industry, not just the energy industry, but I think AI is really just putting us into like hyperdrive, right? So we're able to do things much faster, much better, much cheaper than we ever were before.

That's a really exciting thing and that's something that I always sort of look at is like, what's exciting me? It's how does technology, not just inside our company, but outside our company, how is that progressing our client's goal and our company's mission forward? And that's something that, we're constantly looking at advancing and are excited to see the development of.

Dunya Jovanovic (20:30.887)
And what do you feel like are the biggest barriers to widespread adaptation of smart building tech?

Brad (20:39.8)
think the biggest barriers are, you know, one of the things I saw early days when I got into building energy efficiency was LED light bulbs. And I'm sure, you know, in your office and in my home, I have LEDs everywhere, right? 10 years ago, I didn't have LEDs everywhere, but it wasn't that long after LEDs came out that it was very intuitive to me that like,

Dunya Jovanovic (20:53.795)
huh.

Brad (21:09.262)
hey, these use 40, 50, 60 % less energy. Why wouldn't I use them? But when I got into the building space, and I think this is maybe a real estate space, real estate has not been the fastest to adopt, right? We still build buildings very similarly to how we built them 50 years ago. Not a ton has changed from a technology perspective. And when I saw the slow adoption of LEDs in buildings, it was sort of a signal that, you

This may be an industry that is a bit slower to adopt technologies. It's a bit more of a pragmatic industry. So they want to see widespread adoption until they start taking on new risks. So I think one is industry and mentality, which I believe, you know, widespread adoption and incentives and regulation are all helping with. But another is

I think there's a lot of noise in the market right now. I think there's a lot of providers doing a lot of interesting things, but just like me, you know, I look out there at, you know, I was buying new headphones a couple of years ago and the amount of research I had to do to figure out what was the right headphone for me. It was, you know, it was somewhat like it was staggering, right? The amount of wireless headphones and each one had its benefit and each one had its drawback and

Dunya Jovanovic (22:09.247)
here.

Brad (22:34.146)
There's thousands of reviewers, there's hundreds of types of products. And I think that decision-making ability when left up to the customer is quite challenging, right? It's almost like there's too much to pick from. So I think unification of messaging, think an understanding of technologies coming together. And I think a more clear

A more clear example or a more clear defined path can help with the adoption of smart technologies. But I still think we're in that testing beta, a highly fragmented sort of state where there's a ton of technologies out there. We'll see which ones make it and see which ones are meaningful in the end. But I always say if your technology is not doing something actionable and if it's not making your life easier.

You really have to question whether it's the right technology. Some technologies are good, but they're outdated. There is better versions of them. yeah, I know that's sort of a cloudy answer, but I think the market has to evolve. think people have to see what works and really trust that they're adopting the right technology. And I think once that's done and you're starting to see things really work together in an integrated way from all like the big core technologies, I think that will then hit that,

later adopt sorry that later innovator that later adoption curve and I think that's when it will be you know widespread and widely adopted.

Dunya Jovanovic (24:09.375)
Developing and implementing technology is great, but how do you communicate that your tech is real, that it's working? How do you basically position yourself above that noise? Because you know everyone is talking about how their tech is great and is working or will be working, know, making miracles, whatever.

Brad (24:32.556)
Yeah, yeah. So how do we do it? A lot of time, a lot of effort spent with our customers. I think just being honest, right? And proving it and showing it. We have a lot of really successful case studies. market. We make sure we take a lot of time to explain to our customers exactly how things work, exactly what we're doing, and what their outcome is going to be. That's why we're so bold to stand behind it with a guarantee.

Dunya Jovanovic (24:38.653)
Eh.

Brad (25:01.038)
That's actually quite unique. You're not gonna see a lot of companies in the industry that are able to stand behind their product with a guarantee. What we do also is quite complex. When you think about it, we're constantly ingesting hundreds of thousands of records of data. And then we're using an algorithm to essentially predict and control buildings that are 250,000 square feet up to a million square feet.

So we're controlling essentially the climate in a piece of real estate every minute, you know, for, you know, five years, our customers were all on five year contracts. So we're really tied to them with an outcome, but it also gives us the time that they need in order to understand, okay, how does, how does parity actually work in our building? What are the actual outcomes? Can they do it consistently? And I think that's a big key in how we differentiate is

Dunya Jovanovic (25:30.367)
you

Brad (25:59.34)
We're there for the long term. We want to be consistent. We don't just want to set it and forget it. You know, we're not going in and saying, OK, it's done. We walk away. We're there through the entire journey. We're there to assist building staff. We're there to achieve the outcome. So it really aligns us a lot with our customers. And I think that's quite different. And I think that's really helpful when explaining how we're different to our customers as opposed to other technologies, as well as the economics.

Right? Our typical paybacks as far as adopting our product and service are anywhere from two to three years. And that's about five, six, seven times faster than the average technology that's out there trying to achieve the same thing.

Dunya Jovanovic (26:46.757)
And since we are approaching the end of our conversation, can you tell me what are you most excited about regarding the future of Verity and smart building technology?

Brad (26:58.828)
Yeah, I mean, there's lots to be excited about. think, you know, most recently there's been a lot of attention in our industry, you know, globally, but domestically as well. You know, we're seeing more and more buildings really see the opportunity for grid interactivity, and we're seeing grids adopt programs that are

Dunya Jovanovic (27:07.827)
Bye bye.

Brad (27:25.472)
Exciting in a way that is allowing providers like us providers like demand response companies providers like demand management companies to Essentially really drive more value than has been ever historically available to a building owner And the goal of that is really decarbonization right if there's anything that we really look to is How are we helping the environment? But how are we doing it in a way where it's not costing people more to do it?

And I think that's a bit of a fallacy that's been around is, you know, being green costs more money. We're really turning that on its head and saying, it actually doesn't, right? Being green can be a very high return on investment and without a lot of capital and really, you know, using a company like Parity, we can really make it easy for you. So, I mean, there's tons to be excited about, you know, the further development of AI, battery storage, grid interactivity, but I'd say overall just

I think the mentality is changing and I love to see that and I love just to think that our team and our customers are a big part of that and getting behind that vision to change the future and be better and be greener. That's really what I'm excited about.

Dunya Jovanovic (28:42.303)
So with that in mind, what advice would you share for founders or executives in climate tech, innovative tech, who are a few years behind you facing challenges that you faced a couple of years ago?

Brad (28:57.866)
yeah, advice. I always say I don't give advice unless I'm asked for it, but I think the advice that I would give is, you know, building a company is a long road. There is no shortcuts. Focusing on quality, focusing on consistency, focusing on your customer and listening to your customer. Your product that you set out to build may not be

Dunya Jovanovic (29:02.632)
Yeah.

Brad (29:26.594)
the value proposition that your customer wants. But if you listen to them, you'll understand what problem they're solving and, or sorry, what problem you're solving for them. And you'll really just get to understand how to build your product better for your customers. Yeah, managing, know, managing the right teams, bringing the right people on board is gonna be very key. And, you know, if you're taking on investment, doing it at the right time and bringing on the right investors and making sure that your vision

and your mission and how you want to run the business is very aligned with them. Because if it's not, it can be quite challenging to row a boat when two people want to go two separate ways. So I think that's what I'd say.

Dunya Jovanovic (30:14.801)
Well, if people want to learn more about parity or you or if they want to get in touch with you, where they can do that.

Brad (30:21.986)
Yeah, paritygo.com, you go to our website specifically for building owners. They can sign up. We'd be happy to come out, do a free assessment or let you know if you qualify for our service. You can reach out to us on LinkedIn, X. Yeah, that's probably the easiest way to get ahold of us.

Dunya Jovanovic (30:42.687)
So people, if you're watching or listening, we are linking all of that in the description of this episode. Brad, thank you once again for being a guest here on our podcast. And well, I wish you successful years since you're pretty optimistic about the industry you're in.

Brad (31:02.734)
Thank you. Yeah, thanks again for having me.